Ars has reviewed GNOME 3.0, and concludes: "The solid technical work that has been done under the hood really complements the new user experience features in GNOME 3.0. Despite some of the gaps in the feature set, I think that the environment and the new shell is a good starting point for building something even better. The GNOME contributors will be able to iterate on the design and move it forward in future updates."

Yeah, "who needs close button" arguments can easily pop up. After all "one can configure to close the window with some double middle click" or something. (The arguments to remove the maximize button were in the same fashion).

In the dialogue you move windows to different activities, you just have another one that is a trash can, pit leading to hell or something. They already have one interface for moving windows. Isn't closing a window really just moving it to an inescapable pit of nothingness?